My question is, does this book tackle the big problem of most MMORPGs, namely, that there's very little in the way of plotline? Sure, they're great of killers, socializers, achievers, explorers... but what about people who want to be entertained by a good story? If I'm paying you twenty bucks a month for this thing, and it's not giving me 15-20 hours of involving story/gameplay, I'm better off buying 'classic' games like Deus Ex or Jedi Knight 2 or Real War. Give us something other than levelling via meaninless repeated tasks to look forward to. Give us a storyline that we actually run into! Not just something that'll unfold as news updates every month.
But then, how would you know? If they're exactly, precisely the same, there's no way to tell which one you're in... in which case, it's functionally equivlant to there only being one universe.
The scary things is, that this is a damn good idea... it'd save those of us who don't give a damn a whole lot of headaches from listening to the people who do...
"Lookie here, Beauford! This here electric can opener, see, I got me three of 'em, and I tinkered with 'em, but damned if a blender don't mix up a nice al-key-holic drink better than three of these dang-gum things!"
It's an X-Box. It's made to play games, not run Seti@Home.
Hey, you try keeping three people going on one conversation sitting in the coffee shop of a bookstore. If more people had showed up, we could've stretched it out longer, I'm betting.
It's a damn fun game. The key, as in real life, IS NOT TO DRIVE YOUR BOAT UP ONTO THE ISLANDS! I mean, c'mon...
Seriously, one of the most fun moments I've had with that game is trying to outrun torpedoes and turbo-boosting over a reef, sending my boat into the air while the torps hit the reef and blew up behind me. Smooth sailing from there. It may be Microsoft, but MS's games department tends to hit fairly often...
I use Yahoo's POP3 service for one very important thing: Getting the mail form their server, onto my box. I do this perhaps once a month, to clear up space on their server, and to have easier access to my mail.
Now they want to charge for it? They'll probably want to charge me when the mail I've built up exceeds their size limits, too. With no way to take it off.
Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to stop using Yahoo and viewing their ads. What, x10 wasn't paying them enough per non-view?
C'mon, it's a review of a $1500 piece of hardware that does what an $800 computer can do if you give it a good sound card and a burner. Give me reasons why it should be bought!
I could have told you about this back in October when the company I'm contracting for rolled out XP RC1 company-wide.
Of course, we only saw it happen three times, and only in Outlook... and when it happened, we had almost-complete sentances, not just random words... so it makes you wonder if it's -really- the voice recognition software, or something else... it certainly looked like three other people's emails being combined into one, alternating every five or six words, with punctuation...
Are we talking about the same court system? I'm talking about the one that has tons of flaws, from teh guy in Massachusettes who lets rapists go free because teh 14-year-old victim will get over it, to the Supreme Court that butts into Florida's election system and forces a winner. At least the people in general accept that Congress is out for money... but a court system out for power? They may be bound by Congress' laws, but they get to interpret them...
For exactly the same reason Congress never votes itself a pay raise or declares they don't have the power to do something, no court is going to declare that the US doesn't have jurisdiction over the 'net. Those in power almost universally refuse to castrate yourself.
That's like saying HTML never added anything to a site. 100% true. It's the content that matters, no whow it's delivered. But let's face it... if you have good content, then it look s a hell of a lot better in Flash than it does in a single page of text.
Having had to read -one- person's code and make sense of it, can I ask where in the world the judge is going to find people who can read the source code -and- make sense of it -and- determine if the arguements have merit? And, of course, have it happen inside of a year? Any sufficiently learned group of programmers will probably be either too expensive to hire for the job or bicker amongst themselves... you have to admit, most programmers are either biased for or against MS in the first place. All it takes is one arguement and poof...
"I'm sorry, your honor, but the witnesses are deadlocked..."
I wonder i this takes into account used game sales. I know I racked up a bit of debt buying used Dreamcast games while they're a) cheap and b) easy-to-find.
Slashdot Mirror
My question is, does this book tackle the big problem of most MMORPGs, namely, that there's very little in the way of plotline? Sure, they're great of killers, socializers, achievers, explorers... but what about people who want to be entertained by a good story? If I'm paying you twenty bucks a month for this thing, and it's not giving me 15-20 hours of involving story/gameplay, I'm better off buying 'classic' games like Deus Ex or Jedi Knight 2 or Real War. Give us something other than levelling via meaninless repeated tasks to look forward to. Give us a storyline that we actually run into! Not just something that'll unfold as news updates every month.
But then, how would you know? If they're exactly, precisely the same, there's no way to tell which one you're in... in which case, it's functionally equivlant to there only being one universe.
Okay, theory: There is an infinite number or parallel universes.
:)
This implies that there is at least one universe wehre any given situation can happen.
This implies there is at least one universe where there are no parallel universes.
Which would prove the theory wrong.
I love bad logic.
The scary things is, that this is a damn good idea... it'd save those of us who don't give a damn a whole lot of headaches from listening to the people who do...
Has anybody made the seemingly-obligatory 'Cult of the Dead Cow' joke in relationship to this thing yet?
You forgot the bit where you can't connect over 52kpbs... power limits, if I remember. Even 56k isn't quite truth in advertising.
I thought this was Slashdot... apparently it's been taken over by Tech Support Comedy [techcomedy.com].
Yes, our new tax software does to your hard drive what the IRS is going to do to you!
...why pick Harry Anderson to play the guy 'loosely' based on you in a sitcom 'loosely' based on you? Who were the runners-up?
"Lookie here, Beauford! This here electric can opener, see, I got me three of 'em, and I tinkered with 'em, but damned if a blender don't mix up a nice al-key-holic drink better than three of these dang-gum things!"
It's an X-Box. It's made to play games, not run Seti@Home.
Y'know... I bet this is some smart-alec's way of getting back at us for the 'magic marker defeats copy protection' thing.
Look at The White Stripes. Six months ago, their CD sold for $9.99. Now that they've won a few VMAs and gotten popular? Same CD, $13.99.
Betcha the band doesn't see a cent of that extra four bucks...
Hey, you try keeping three people going on one conversation sitting in the coffee shop of a bookstore. If more people had showed up, we could've stretched it out longer, I'm betting.
Isn't "As happens with these things, I am not allowed to comment" itself a comment?
And can we get him not to be allowed to comment on more things?
It's a damn fun game. The key, as in real life, IS NOT TO DRIVE YOUR BOAT UP ONTO THE ISLANDS! I mean, c'mon...
Seriously, one of the most fun moments I've had with that game is trying to outrun torpedoes and turbo-boosting over a reef, sending my boat into the air while the torps hit the reef and blew up behind me. Smooth sailing from there. It may be Microsoft, but MS's games department tends to hit fairly often...
I use Yahoo's POP3 service for one very important thing: Getting the mail form their server, onto my box. I do this perhaps once a month, to clear up space on their server, and to have easier access to my mail.
Now they want to charge for it? They'll probably want to charge me when the mail I've built up exceeds their size limits, too. With no way to take it off.
Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to stop using Yahoo and viewing their ads. What, x10 wasn't paying them enough per non-view?
C'mon, it's a review of a $1500 piece of hardware that does what an $800 computer can do if you give it a good sound card and a burner. Give me reasons why it should be bought!
I could have told you about this back in October when the company I'm contracting for rolled out XP RC1 company-wide.
Of course, we only saw it happen three times, and only in Outlook... and when it happened, we had almost-complete sentances, not just random words... so it makes you wonder if it's -really- the voice recognition software, or something else... it certainly looked like three other people's emails being combined into one, alternating every five or six words, with punctuation...
Are we talking about the same court system? I'm talking about the one that has tons of flaws, from teh guy in Massachusettes who lets rapists go free because teh 14-year-old victim will get over it, to the Supreme Court that butts into Florida's election system and forces a winner. At least the people in general accept that Congress is out for money... but a court system out for power? They may be bound by Congress' laws, but they get to interpret them...
For exactly the same reason Congress never votes itself a pay raise or declares they don't have the power to do something, no court is going to declare that the US doesn't have jurisdiction over the 'net. Those in power almost universally refuse to castrate yourself.
That's like saying HTML never added anything to a site. 100% true. It's the content that matters, no whow it's delivered. But let's face it... if you have good content, then it look s a hell of a lot better in Flash than it does in a single page of text.
You get what you pay for. Especially online.
Unless you get less than what you pay for.
Almost never do you get more than you pay for.
Anyone who can raise that much funding for a feline cloning program called 'CopyCat' has a real future in marketing or political fundraising.
Having had to read -one- person's code and make sense of it, can I ask where in the world the judge is going to find people who can read the source code -and- make sense of it -and- determine if the arguements have merit? And, of course, have it happen inside of a year? Any sufficiently learned group of programmers will probably be either too expensive to hire for the job or bicker amongst themselves... you have to admit, most programmers are either biased for or against MS in the first place. All it takes is one arguement and poof...
"I'm sorry, your honor, but the witnesses are deadlocked..."
I wonder i this takes into account used game sales. I know I racked up a bit of debt buying used Dreamcast games while they're a) cheap and b) easy-to-find.